The general arc of the 4E releases has been for them to improve in quality, sometimes drastically. The developers note this trend themselves and have declared Primal Power to be the best Power supplement yet. I respectfully have to disagree… I don’t think it quite matches the peak of Divine Power. I’m not even sure it surpasses Arcane Power. I’d rank it closer to Martial Power, I think.
Martial Power was the first Power book to come out, and it consisted primarily of new options that could have existed in place of the ones in the PHB. There were some new keywords, the Beast Mastery Ranger build was quite a bit from anything that came before… but really what it added to the game was diversity of options. It didn’t do much to make characters more complex or to open the game up in a new direction. It had nothing along the lines of Arcane Power’s arcane familiar feat or Divine Power’s divinity and domain feats. The fighting style feats introduced after the domain feats were dreamed for Divine Power would have fit the bill nicely, opening up a new direction for characters to specialize in that would flavor martial characters distinctly from others, but they were devised too late.
Primal Power is somewhat like that. It introduces (or canonizes, as they were already previewed electronically) tribal feats, which give a bonus that increases for each ally who shares it. That’s a nice way of getting a mechanical representation for that sort of bond. It’s nothing huge.
This is not to knock the book at all. It fleshes out the mythos behind primal powers… and I have to say that while I was underwhelmed by the default pantheon at launch, the more the mythology gets fleshed out, the better I like it. It contains a couple of pages on how to play each primal character. These sections were cited by the devs as being one reason they think this is the best Power book yet. Aside from being good characterization and gameplay guides for newbies, they help clarify some of the nitpicky stuff in an incidental fashion: yes, druids can talk while Wild Shaped, if they want to. No, there’s no rule that says your Spirit Companion or Wild Shape are always the same.
The new options are welcome as new options always are. The Druid ones are especially awesome: the Summoning Druid (already previewed) adds much, and the Swarm Druid is just cool and fits in well with the handful of monsters who use similar effects. They use as an example a Drow who can turn into a mass of spiders, but I’d like to make an Eladrin who turns into a swarm of butterflies. As a special effect, she could leave a few butterflies behind when she Fey Steps, which would then flutter on over to her new location.
The feats are really my favorite part of the book, though. I always enjoy seeing new feats, as to me they’re the best way to put a distinct stamp on a character. The lack of an awesome new “system” for Primal characters is somewhat made up by the large number of “any primal class” feats that really… primal up, for lack of a better term… your character.
There are new multiclass feats for each of the primal classes, which aren’t alternatives to the existing ones so much as enhancements… each one has the existing multiclass feat as a prerequisite and gives you another feature borrowed from the class, for characters that want to do more than dabble.
The class specific ones are nice, too. Two stand-outs for Barbarian: Hurl Weapon and Improvised Missile.
My favorite feats, though, aren’t tied explicitly to any race, class, or power source: Herbalist, Inner Compass, and Wild Sage.
Herbalist gives you a feat bonus to Heal checks used to treat diseases and gives you the Brew Potion ritual for free when you reach its level. This is a much-needed addition to the game, in my opinion: something to give natural healers a boost, and a way of making potions without being a ritual caster. It’s a great addition to an Artificer, to any alchemist character who is not also a ritual caster, and to anybody making a Ranger who wants to emphasize the “nature lore” aspect over the combat Striker role.
Inner Compass gives you a perfect sense of direction and lets you roll twice when you make a roll to navigate the wilderness or dungeon. Nice for any outdoorsy character, including anybody making a Ranger who wants to emphasize the “nature lore” aspect over the combat Striker role.
Finally, Wild Sage gives you a +5 feat bonus to Nature knowledge checks/monster ID checks and lets you use one (chosen when you take the feat) of three level one Natural rituals once per day without any ritual components: Dowsing Rod, Portend Weather, or Traveler’s Camouflage. Again, a great feat for anybody making a Ranger who wants to emphasize the “nature lore” aspect over the combat Striker role.
All the other classless feats in the book are the tribal ones, but those three are each a welcome addition in my mind. I just might have a character concept in mind that could use one or all of them.